Authors

Department

Marketing and Professional Sales

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-3-2016

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this research is to develop a taxonomy of the impact of sales process regulations, guidance statements and laws (henceforth, referred to as “regulations”) on sales behaviours within the pharmaceutical industry, particularly as it relates to those within the USA. Design/methodology/approach Given the large number of regulations, guidance statements and laws and sales behaviours that comprise the domain of this study, this research uses a “multicenter, parallel-arm clinical trial data gathering method”. This approach aggregated or “stacked” the responses from three individual questionnaires; 7,493 total observations generated by 381 respondents were analyzed. Findings The analysis produced a six-cluster solution of regulations, guidance statements and laws indicating distinct taxonomic structures of items that affect selling activities. Research limitations/implications The research was conducted with a single firm in the USA. Therefore, results may not be applicable to other geographical areas, firms and industries. Practical Implications The knowledge of which behaviours are perceived by the salespeople to be impacted by what regulations, guidance statements and laws provides managers with a useful tool to sort their own companies’ regulations on the basis of the classification scheme. Originality/value This paper provides a novel taxonomic approach to organize sales activities affected by regulations, guidance statements and laws which provides a look at the unintended consequences of the item not compliance. Additionally, it uses a research methodology relatively unknown to social science inquiry.